To Learn to Trust Again
by acenans
Summary: Lewis is back for the summer, Bella is traveling, and Rikki is desperate to know if she can trust Zane once again. Recruiting Will to help her test Zane to see if he can be trusted, her past unravels, taking a relationship down with it.
1. Chapter 1

"Rikki, what are you doing here?"

"Could ask you the same thing, Will."

Rikki heard Will stand up and dust off the dirt that had gotten on his shorts when he slid down the land entrance to the Moon Pool. She was resting her arms on the edge of the Moon Pool, head tilted on the side upon them.

"You okay?" He asked her. He hadn't seen her much since the party after graduation. He and Bella had been spending a lot of time together before she took off for her two month trip with her parents before she came back to attend college in town. He hadn't intended for them not to see each other, and a small part of him was worried now, seeing her as she was, that perhaps she thought they were only friends because of Bella.

"Oh, just dandy." She said, pushing off slightly from the wall and going under, not looking at him before doing so. She came back up a moment later and his worries that she didn't want to see him disappeared. "Help me out?" She asked, holding a hand out to him as she neared the edge of the pool. He pulled her up and out and once again dusted the dirt off of his shorts while she dried herself off. "What are you doing here?"

Will smiled, something about Rikki looked so much lighter than it had the last time he saw her. He knew she had been gone for a few days leading up to Bella's departure, visiting family and friends, but he had expected her to come back worse than she had been. Instead she looked as she had when she first met him. Light, and carefree, minus the whole mermaid secret thing. "Just came to enjoy the day."

"Avoiding Sophie?"

"And Cleo and Lewis. Never realized how often they stick their tongues down each other's throats."

"Ah, yeah, that becomes apparent when you aren't doing the same thing. How is Bella doing, by the way?"

"She's fine, trip just started, so nothing too dramatic yet. How was your trip?"

She shrugged and he didn't think he should push, but he felt the need to, like she wanted him to.

"You seem happy."

Rikki didn't talk for what felt like several minutes, wandering around, using small steps, before finally turning to him.

"I know how you feel about Zane."

"Are you two back together?"

"No."

"Okay?"

She breathed, and he gathered she was taking the time to think about what she was going to say, not avoiding his questions. _Rikki thinking before she opens her mouth.. that one's new._ He thought with a chuckle.

"I..."

"You can tell me anything, Rikki."

"I want to know I can trust him again, before I give in to my feelings."

Something in Will's heart sank as she said those words. "You still have feelings for him?"

"I still love him. I think." She said, sighing heavily and sitting down and looking at her hands, gathered in her lap. "It's hard with not knowing if I can trust him. And what the girls and I talked about, wondering sometimes—mostly when we're fighting—if we're with people because they know, or because we genuinely do love them."

Will brushed off her last comment, deciding his own curiosity could wait. "What brought this on?"

"Did I ever tell you I dated my best friend?"

"No."

"I did. And he was my cousin's best friend too. We were all one big group."

"And?" Will had no idea how this could be relevant to Zane, and while he wanted to be there for Rikki, Zane being brought up had a way of making him rather terse and irritable.

"Well, I saw him while I was home. He's dating one of my old best friends—well, dating isn't the right word—and we talked. One of those long talks you can only have with someone you've known forever and haven't seen in a long time."

Rikki was silent suddenly, and any annoyance Will had with her over the topic dissolved at her tone. She barely sounded like the Rikki he knew so well.

"Anyways," she continued, "I, well, I wanted to tell him everything. I wanted to tell both of them everything, it's the first secret I kept from them and it was harder to do so when we were so close. Instead i settled to tell them about Zane, and fudged the truth a little about why we broke up. Same impact, different story, you know?" Will nodded, not that Rikki saw. "And they were just as pissed as I was. As we all were. But when we were alone... He's right. I still love Zane, and I owe him a shot at redeeming himself. At least for the sake of my own feelings."

 _For the sake of your own feelings you should never talk to him again._ He thought, staring at the stubborn and proud girl that was currently hunched over in a sitting position. _Zane made you feel this way. He put you here. If anything, he deserves the fullest extent of your powers used on him slowly._

"He tried to reveal your secret, Rikki." He settled for instead.

Rikki gave him a look, one that ensured him the old Rikki was still in there underneath all of this. "You and I both know he wouldn't have done that." And it was true that she knew this, wholeheartedly, as did Cleo and Lewis. Bella trusted their word, or so she said. But Will refused to talk about it. In fact, this was the first time he and Rikki had talked about it since it happened.

"You might, I'm not so sure." The shrug that accompanied his response was met with an eye roll from his female companion in the cave before she stood and walked to the far wall, facing away from him.

The water was reflecting onto the pool, making it feel as though it was moving from the shimmering effect it had. The magic had returned only recently, and they had known almost instantly, Rikki had felt it. She had felt it the moment it had happened. Will and Lewis had found her connection to the pool to be remarkable, while Cleo had asked her if she had felt it when it had been blown up. Bella, while happy the magic was back, had felt almost jilted by Rikki having the connection, and not her. The feeling was gone almost as soon as she had expressed it to Will the next day, yet it stuck in Will's mind.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asked after she didn't speak. Her mind was lost in the magic of the cave. She didn't tell them, but it was growing, and it was beginning to become too much for her to handle.

Her heart ached at his words, because the only person she wanted to talk about this, about her connection and her confused feelings, was the very person who caused it all.

"Will you help me?"

"Help you? How?" He quite literally jumped up at the opportunity, mistaking her invite as one to learn more about her connection to the Moon Pool.

"Will you help me know if I can trust him?"


	2. Chapter 2

Things had been messy and wonderful since Lewis had come back, and Cleo felt it all when she woke up each morning. This morning was no different as she continued her morning routine, waiting to hear from Rikki about what their plan was for that day. Rikki had been pretty distant from them all since the Moon Pool got its magic back, but Cleo had expected her to come back around once Bella was gone and it was no longer two couples and Rikki. Yet, instead she kept to her same schedule as usual: Tuesdays and full moons they hung out. And that was it. That was all she gave Cleo.

Cleo sighed when she had managed to finish getting ready before Rikki texted her, so instead she sent her one.

Cleo: **I'll be at Rikki's. I'll be waiting**

By the time she had reached the cafe she had two responses from the cafe's namesake.

Rikki: **Ok.**

Rikki: **See you soon**

Cleo smiled then. She hadn't seen Rikki since she had gone off to visit family before Bella left. It would be wonderful to see her again, maybe go for a swim with someone else again. It had been a while.

"Hey, Cleo." Zane's voice rushed past her ear as she walked into the cafe. It had only been open half an hour, and given it was a Tuesday, it was dead. This gave Zane the much needed time to clean every surface he could.

"Hey, Zane. How's it going?"

"Oh. You know. You?"

He too was distant, but polite nonetheless, these days.

"Fine. Seeing Rikki for the first time in forever. Need any help?"

He involuntarily smiled at his ex-girlfriend's name and shook his head. "You'd go all fish on me if I asked you to help out." A beat passed. "Don't worry, I'm the only one working till two."

"And no one's in the bathrooms?"

"Even if there were, 'going all fish on me' is a better saying than chicken. You have to admit."

"You have to admit what?" The voice behind her belonged to none other than the blonde haired goddess Zane couldn't stop thinking about. Her curly hair was pulled back into a single ponytail, a new look on her, and her usual colors were replaced by a white tank top and blue shorts. If Zane hadn't known any better he would have sworn the woman before him were Rikki's twin, or a failed clone.

"Rikki!" Cleo shouted instead of answering her question. She threw herself at the girl in question and hugged her tightly. Rikki's arms staying loose at her sides before she brought one up to pat Cleo on the back.

"Hey."

"How was your trip?" Cleo asked, not moving from the doorway.

"Uneventful." The blonde said blandly, unsure how to speak in the presence of her best friend and ex-boyfriend, both of which were watching her with unwavering focus.

Zane was the first to break this focus, and he went back to cleaning the grout of the countertops. "Let me know if you want anything." He said in their general direction.

Cleo dragged her to a circular booth. "Come on, tell me everything."

"There's nothing to tell, Cleo."

"Oh, come on. There's got to be something to tell. At least any close calls?"

"My Uncle runs a diner, and I worked at said diner for the entirety of my trip there, and yet, somehow, I managed to have no close calls. I think it's this cafe. It's cursed to try and expose us all."

Cleo laughed lightly. In all honestly she wanted to know about Rikki's mother, she wanted to know what she was like, she wanted to know if they looked the same, if she missed her as much as Cleo missed her own mum, and if she felt the need to tell her the truth as badly as Cleo did her own mum.

"So who did you see?" Cleo pried on.

"Friends, family. Mostly friends." Rikki said.

"Any close calls with them?"

"No, not really. It was a boring trip. Nothing much to tell."

Cleo could tell something was being left out, but she reasoned that perhaps it was Zane's presence that was causing this. "We'll talk later?"

"Yeah, sure."

—

"This is ridiculous."

"If you don't want to help me, then don't."

"No, because the only thing more ridiculous than this is you doing it alone."

"Then just tell your sister I'm seeing someone. It'll get back to Zane that way."

Will sighed and dropped onto the couch in his boat shed. Rikki had now explained the first part of her plan, involving his sister, to him three times. _Three times._ And each one made it sound more and more ridiculous than the last.

"You realize you're insane, right?"

Rikki sat on the couch next to his manspread form, trying to avoid touching his knee with her own.

"You said you wanted to help. So here we are."

Will's hair was still wet from his shower only minutes before Rikki had arrived to give him phase one of her ridiculous plan in attempts to learn if she could trust Zane. This first step was what she considered the most crucial step of all. In order to know if she could truly trust Zane, she had to know whether or not everything he was doing was all in an attempt to win her back. The simplest way to figure out if this was the case? Well to Rikki that was easy. Have his Zane-obsessed and slightly crazy sister Sophie tell Zane she was dating someone else. Obviously.

"And if anyone asks to meet this mystery boyfriend of yours?"

"Already got that covered."

"Well, you just thought of everything, didn't you, Rikki?"

She looked at him with annoyance written on her face. He had thought her crazy when she first said she wanted to test Zane like this, but now he knew she actually _was_ crazy.

"Any specifics you want me to tell her?" He asked, deciding that the sooner he went along with it the sooner Rikki would realize that Zane didn't really care about her, and on they would all go with their lives.

The same smirk he had grown to be comforted by appear on her lips.


	3. Chapter 3

Zoey was being agitating _again_ and it was beginning to wear on Bella's nerves. She had to share a hotel room with her, a _bathroom_ with her, for the entire time they were in Paris. Which would be two whole weeks. It seemed impossible at this point. Worst of all was that Will seemed more distant now than he had been at any other point in their relationship. There was something in his voice when he said that he ran into Rikki at the Moon Pool, something she couldn't explain and that she couldn't shake.

She did her best, though. She really did.

—

Sophie wouldn't let up. She wanted to talk to Zane and she wouldn't stop until she got her way. Zane, of course, was busy trying to get Rikki's attention. He wanted to ask her to come back as manager, even if it meant they would just be friends. _We can work completely separate shifts._ To him, it made complete sense. He knew she'd need the money.

"If you stopped looking at her and listened to me you'd know why she wasn't looking at you."

This caught Zane's attention, if only for a moment. "I don't care, Sophie."

"She's seeing someone else. She told Will about it and he let it slip when talking to Bella on the phone while I was in the room. Apparently they're pretty hot and heavy, if you know what I mean."

The last part was a lie, one that she was hoping would cause him to rid of his little shred of hope left. The little flinch he gave made her blood begin to boil. Rikki was over him, why the hell did he care what she was up to?

"Order something or get out." Zane said, the last bit of politeness he had left in him was gone without a trace. Her jaw set and her vision filled with red as he walked past her in the direction of Rikki and Cleo.

—

Zane was heading for her, and her heart was pounding. He had just been speaking to Sophie, and he seemed upset, distraught, she didn't know which word she should use for the expression on his face. He was going to yell, she could sense it. She could sense his anger, his uneasiness.

"Hey." He said, instead. Calmly.

She didn't like it.

"Hey." She said back, trying to keep her tone flat.

He nodded in Cleo's direction, and Rikki felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. He wanted to be alone. "Mind if I talk to her for a moment?"

"Not at all. Want me to go?"

Rikki shot a glance at Cleo, one any of her other friends would have been able to pick up on. She should have never gone back home. It just made her sick with sadness.

"Oh, no. Not at all. Work stuff." He said, still calmly.

"Oh, okay." Cleo said, relaxing back into her seat and continuing to drink her pink smoothie through the green crazy straw Lewis had gotten her as a joke earlier in the week. It had two dolphins and a mermaid that looked similar to her on it. Rikki didn't find it as cute as Cleo obviously did.

"Work stuff?" Rikki asked, one eyebrow raised higher than the other.

"I was wondering if you'd mind working three days a week? I won't be here. Couldn't get all morning classes this time."

"What days?" She asked, eyeing him closely. His eyes met her and a small, weak smile appeared on his lips.

"Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday."

She looked at him, debating bargaining, debating asking what Sophie had said because he surely couldn't have just heard that she was dating someone. He wouldn't be this calm, right? "Give full moons off and give me Friday or Saturday and we'll call it a deal."

He smiled at her, this time reaching his eyes, just briefly. "You think I'd make you work on a full moon? Come on, Rikki. But the place is yours if you ever need it for that."

"Last time you said that—"

"I know. But I mean it."

"Thanks."

The moment of silence was broken by Cleo's slight slurping, her face flushing as they looked at her. She let out a meek sorry as they looked at each other again.

"Do you prefer Friday or Saturday?"

She looked at him. Should she offer to alternate? Should she say something girly and let him decide? He was technically her boss, and she wasn't sure how she liked that dynamic. "Whichever, really."

"Saturday work? That way you don't have to work three days in a row all the time?"

"Sure. Thanks." He was technically her _boss._ Her ex-boyfriend was technically her boss.

"Hey," he said softly as he turned to walk away. "You're boss while you're here. So uh, good luck with Nate."

Rikki watched as he walked back to where he had been, waving an arm to Sophie who held up the menu in response. What else could she have told him? She needed him to know before she knew if this was real.


End file.
